U. St. Gallen's new Open Access Policy

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 3 Mar 2009 11:57:57 -0500

On 3-Mar-09, at 9:48 AM, ruedi.lindegger_at_unisg.ch wrote:

      Dear Mr. Harnad

      I just registered the new open access policy at ROARMAP.

      With best regards

      Ruedi Lindegger


Dear Mr Lindegger,

That is wonderful. It now appears in ROARMAP as follows (but please
see my comments below about a few slight clarifications and even a
very small but extremely important detail I would like to urge you to
modify):

            University of St. Gallen (SWITZERLAND*
            institutional-mandate)
            http://www.unisg.ch
            Institution's/Department's OA Eprint Archives
            [growth data] http://www.alexandria.unisg.ch
            Institution's/Department's OA Self-Archiving
            Policy

            The new 'Reglement zur Open Access
            Policy' (signed December 15th, 2008 by the
            Senate, the academic governing body of the
            university) contains rules for the
            researchers at the University of St. Gallen.
            These rules go beyond the former 'Open Access
            Policy' (signed November 12th, 2007 also by
            the Senate). The new regulations are
            mandatory.

            There are three parts in the new regulations:
            General provisions, Obligations and Rights of
            researchers.

            General statement: The results of the
            research at the University of St. Gallen
            should be open to public access.

            Obligations : The researchers are obliged to
            retain the necessary rights for
            self-archiving under OA (Open Access) prior
            to publication. If this is only possible with
            a temporally limited embargo, they have to
            fix this period in the contract. If there is
            a possibility to publish the post-print
            version under OA instead of the pre-print one
            the researchers have to choose the former.

            There is, however, a phrase in the
            regulations "soweit möglich", meaning "where
            possible", because the university is aware of
            the situation that there are publishers who
            do not allow self-archiving under OA.

            The full text (post-print or pre-print) has
            to be published in the institutional
            repository of the research platform of the
            University of St. Gallen
            (http://www.alexandria.unisg.ch) at the
            moment of acceptance by a publisher. Further,
            the university encourages the researchers to
            publish in OA-journals.

            Rights: The university supports the
            researchers concerning all matters of OA.
            Added by: Ruedi Lindegger (Coordinator
            Research-Platform) alexandria AT unisg.ch on
            03 Mar 2009


The two recommended clarifications are the following:

      (1) "Publish" is ambiguous in English, and in fact also
      ambiguous insofar as the St. Gallen policy is concerned.
      The paper is published in the journal. In addition to
      that, the paper is deposited (or "self-archived") in the
      repository (Alexandria). In addition, that paper,
      deposited in Alexandria, is either made OA immediately,
      or it is made OA after an embargo period, or it is not
      made OA. (Clearly none of these is quite synonymous with
      "publishing in Alexandria" in the same sense as
      publishing in the journal!) I have suggested a wording
      below that will disambiguate this: use "deposit" instead
      of "publish."


      (2) "Postprint" and "Preprint" are ambiguous as you use
      them. "Preprint" means any draft before the final,
      refereed, accepted draft. That final, refereed draft
      itself, as well as the publisher's copy-edited PDF, and
      any subsequent postpublication corrected drafts are
      all postprints. I think that in your policy, by
      "preprint" you actually mean the author's final,
      refereed, accepted draft, and by "postprint" you mean the
      publisher's PDF. This will create confusion if you call
      them "preprint" and "postprint," because publisher'
      policy statements in Romeo are not based on this usage:
      By "postprint," most publishers mean the author's
      refereed, accepted final draft, and when publishers want
      to specify policy regarding their proprietary PDF, they
      refer specifically to the proprietary published version.
      I have suggested a disambiguation below, but I would also
      like to add that there is no real reason to prefer the
      publisher's PDF over the author's postprint. Almost all
      OA mandates require only the author's postprint, and in
      fact the functionality of that draft is better than the
      publisher's PDF, whereas the restrictions on it are far
      fewer.


      What is an Eprint?


      Eprints are the digital texts of peer-reviewed research
      articles, before and after refereeing. Before refereeing
      and publication, the draft is called a "preprint." The
      refereed, accepted final draft is called a "postprint."
      (Note that this need not be the publisher's proprietary
      PDF version!) Eprints include both preprints and
      postprints (as well as any significant drafts in between,
      and any postpublication updates). Researchers are
      encouraged to self-archive them all. The OAI tags keep
      track of all versions. All versions should contain links
      to the publisher's official version of record.


My third point consists of a very small recommended modification in
the policy that will make it substantially more effective: 

      (3) Currently, you have a rights-retention mandate,
      requiring immediate deposit and OA either immediately or
      after an (unspecified) embargo period, but with a "soweit
      möglich"  clause that allows the researcher to opt out of
      the rights-retention, OA and deposit itself (presumably
      if the publisher does not agree to the rights-retention
      and OA deposit, in which case the paper presumably need
      not be deposited at all). My suggestion is that you make
      the deposit mandatory in any case, and apply the "soweit
      möglich" opt-out clause only to whether and when the
      deposit is made OA: If the publisher refuses to allow
      rights-retention and OA, even after an embargo, but the
      researcher wishes to publish in that journal anyway, that
      is fine: The postprint must be deposited immediately upon
      acceptance anyway, but it can be deposited under Closed
      Access instead of OA, and left under Closed Access
      indefinitely (just as it would be left under Closed
      Access during an embargo).


The reason (3) is so important is that it (a) immunizes the mandate
against opt-outs from doing the deposit itself. (Publisher policy
does not apply in any way to institution-internal, Closed-Access
deposits; it applies only to making access OA.) This way there are no
exceptions to the deposit requirement, and the calendar date of
journal-acceptance specifies exactly when the deposit must be done. 
You have left the permissible embargo open-ended (although a cap
could be recommended, if not required -- e.g., 6-12 months, but this
is minor, because of the next point, (b)): 
(b) If all St. Gallen's refereed article output is immediately
deposited upon acceptance, then even for those deposits that are not
OA -- either because they have a finite embargo or because they are
in Closed Access indefinitely -- can still provide "Almost-OA" though
the repository's "request a copy" Button, allowing users who reach
the metadata of a Closed Access deposit to send an automatic email to
the author requesting one copy for research purposes, with one click,
and allowing the author to authorize the emailing of one copy to the
requester, automatically, by the repository software, likewise with
one click.

So here are the small changes I would recommend in the current
language of the St. Gallen Mandate:

            Obligations : The researchers are obliged to
            retain the necessary rights for
            self-archiving under OA (Open Access) prior
            to publication. If this is only possible with
            a temporally limited embargo, they have to
            fix this period in the contract. If there is
            a possibility to publish the post-print
            publisher's PDF version under OA instead of
            the pre-print one author's refereed, accepted
            final draft the researchers have to choose
            the former.

            There is, however, a phrase in the
            regulations "soweit möglich", meaning "where
            possible", because the university is aware of
            the situation that there are publishers who
            do not allow self-archiving under OA. 

            The full text (post-print or
            pre-print author's postprint or publisher's
            PDF) has to be published deposited in the
            institutional repository of the research
            platform of the University of St. Gallen
            (http://www.alexandria.unisg.ch) at the
            moment of acceptance by a publisher. Where it
            is not possible to retain the right to
            self-archive under OA, even after an embargo,
            the author's postprint must nevertheless be
            deposited upon acceptance, but under Closed
            Access instead of OA.


I hope you will consider these modifications. If you do decide to
adopt them, please let me know and I will update the policy as
registered in ROARMAP.

Congratulations and best wishes,

Stevan Harnad


      __________________________________________________________________
      Alexandria Forschungsplattform - www.alexandria.unisg.ch
      Universität St. Gallen
      Dufourstrasse 40a
      9000 St. Gallen

      Tel   071 224 7600 (Mo-Mi)
      Mail  ruedi.lindegger_at_unisg.ch / alexandria_at_unisg.ch
      Web  www.alexandria.unisg.ch/Personen/Ruedi_Lindegger




      Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>

      02.03.2009 14:11

An
      bernhard.ehrenzeller_at_unisg.ch
Kopie
      ruedi.lindegger_at_unisg.ch
Thema
      Re: Antwort: U. St. Gallen's new Open Access Policy




      Leiber Bernhardt,

      Vielen Dank. Wir erwarten gespannt Ihre Anmeldung!

      Mit besten Grüsse,

      Stevan

      On Mon, 2 Mar 2009, bernhard.ehrenzeller_at_unisg.ch wrote:

>
> Dear Stevan
>
> We will do that.
>
> Best regards
>
> Bernhard
>
>
> Institut für Rechtswissenschaft
> und Rechtspraxis (IRP-HSG)
> Bodanstrasse 4
> CH-9000 St. Gallen
>
> Tel.-Nr. +41 (0)71 224 24 40/46
> Fax-Nr. +41 (0)71 224 24 41
> bernhard.ehrenzeller_at_unisg.ch
> www.irp.unisg.ch
>
>
>
>             Stevan Harnad
>             <harnad_at_ecs.soton
>             .ac.uk>                                    
                     An
>                                        
      bernhard.ehrenzeller_at_unisg.ch
>             28/02/2009 04:12                          
                   Kopie
>                                         Bernard Rentier
>                                        
      <brentier_at_ulg.ac.be>, Alexander
>                                         Borbely
>                                        
      <borbely_at_pharma.unizh.ch>,
>                                        
      e-collection_at_library.ethz.ch
>                                                        
                  Thema
>                                         U. St. Gallen's
      new Open Access
>                                         Policy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear Prof. Ehrenzeller,
>
> It is excellent news that University of St. Gallen has
      adopted an Open
> Access (OA) Policy as announced in this
> http://idw-online.de/pages/de/news302827
>
> If the policy is an OA mandate (requirement) then that
      would make it
> Switzerland's third institutional OA mandate (after
      Zuerich and ETHZ)
> and fourth OA mandate (SNF has a funder mandate), the
      world's 66th OA
> mandate:
      http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/
>
> Could I ask you if you would register St. Gallen's
      policy in ROARMAP:
>
      http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/policysignup/sign.php#fr
>
> That way it will help other universities and research
      funders
> worldwide to do likewise.
>
> (Your repository itself, Alexandria, is already
      registered in ROAR:
>
      http://roar.eprints.org/index.php?action=search&query=gallen&submit=Search
>  )
>
> With congratulations and best wishes,
>
> Stevan Harnad
> American Scientist Open Access Forum
>http://amsci-forum.amsci.org/archives/American-Scientist-Open-Access-Forum.h
      tml
>
>
> Chaire de recherche du Canada                  
       Professor of Cognitive
> Science
> Institut des sciences cognitives
> Electronics & Computer Science
> Universite du Quebec a Montreal                      
       University of
> Southampton
> Montreal, Quebec
> Highfield, Southampton
> Canada  H3C 3P8
> SO17 1BJ United Kingdom
> http://www.crsc.uqam.ca/
> http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/harnad/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
Received on Tue Mar 03 2009 - 16:58:43 GMT

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